History of the Peloponnesian War

But Demosthenes was both in greater and more continual toil, in respect that he marched in the rear and consequently was pressed by the enemy; and seeing the Syracusians pursuing him, he went not on but put his men in order to fight, till by his stay he was encompassed and reduced, he and the Athenians with him, into great disorder. For being shut up within a place enclosed round with a wall, and which on either side had a way [open] amongst abundance of olive trees, they were charged from all sides at once with the enemy's shot.

For the Syracusians assaulted them in this kind, and not in close battle, upon very good reason. For to hazard battle against men desperate was not so much for theirs as for the Athenians' advantage. Besides, after so manifest successes, they spared themselves somewhat, because they were loth to wear themselves out before the end of the business, and thought by this kind of fight to subdue and take them alive.

Whereupon, after they had plied the Athenians and their confederates all day long from every side with shot and saw that with their wounds and other annoyance they were already tired, Gylippus and the Syracusians and their confederates first made proclamation that if any of the islanders would come over to them, they should be at liberty. And the men of some few cities went over.

And by and by after, they made agreement with all the rest that were with Demosthenes that they should deliver up their arms, and none of them be put to death, neither violently, nor by bonds, nor by want of the necessities of life.

And they all yielded, to the number of six thousand men; and the silver they had, they laid it all down, casting it into the hollow of targets, and filled with the same four targets. And these men they carried presently into the city. Nicias, and those that were with him, attained the same day to the river Erineus, which passing, he caused his army to sit down upon a certain ground more elevate than the rest.